


build your bones

by pineneedlepants



Series: Halloween fics [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Blood and Gore, Coping with trauma, Dark Stiles, Dead Sheriff Stilinski, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Families of Choice, Full Shift Werewolves, Kate gets what's coming for her, Lonely Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Serial Killer Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Takes Care Of Derek Hale, Warning: Kate Argent, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:02:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineneedlepants/pseuds/pineneedlepants
Summary: There’s something acid twisting in Stiles’ scent as he keeps staring at Derek, awkward silence surrounding them. Derek can practically see the gears turning inside Stiles’ head as he comes to his conclusions.‘’Not a faulty wiring then, huh. Hunters?’’Derek gives one sharp nod.‘’The ones after you now?’’Another sharp nod.‘’Well, shit,’’ Stiles says, and Derek sees his face widening into a feral grin. ‘’If they ever cross me and mine,’’ he says with dark glee, ‘’they’ll beso fucking sorryfor all of their life choices. I can promise you that.’’--Happy Halloween!





	1. howl for my love..

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read. 
> 
> Happy Halloween to all of you!

The dark hallways of the asylum are quiet. Moonlight filters in through cracks and crumbled walls, floors collapsing in most parts. They're rotten, boards succumbing under the onslaught of weather and erosion and insects. The building has six floors in total, the highest one already inaccessible with the roof having destroyed everything under its inevitable collapse.

 

The sounds seem oddly muffled in contrast to the outside world, the soft clack of Derek's paws the most loudest one within the long hallways. The wind blows softly throughout the place, faint creaks and cracks echoing the building. It's eerie. Derek feels like he's walking inside a mausoleum instead of a emptied mental hospital. He's afraid to look at the walls around him, the tapestry curled and fissured. Like if he was to rip down a part of the wall, bodies would start littering the hollowed floorboards, tumbling down one after the other. Rows and rows and rows of them. Skeletons holding the building up from its core, the construction structured from hidden white bones.

 

He feels like he's not alone. Someone, multiple someones are watching him, though the gazes have no heartbeats, and instead of eyes, there are only the black holes of skulls staring back at him.

 

He keeps his head low.

 

Peter used to be a patient here. Even now, with the place deserted and dilapidated, he knows which floor, which wing, which room. Where the tiny prison room they held his uncle in is. And that's where he's headed now.

 

Derek, for his once wide and flourishing kin, is the only Hale left. Out of eighteen people, Derek is the only wolf that hasn't met his violent demise. The hunters are the only company that persists.

 

When Derek had been six years old, his uncle Peter's wife, his mate Olivia, had been killed in a car accident. Death as mundane as it was cruel, the guilty party drunk and driving, when they had no business being behind the wheel. Olivia had been pregnant with Peter’s first child back then, and the loss of both his mate and baby, Peter had gone insane. Snapped in all the lethal ways the second their bond had been severed, gone into a blind, mindless _rage,_ killing the convicted drunk driver before the police got their hands on him.

 

Talia had fought with everything she had to not put Peter in a mental institution or worse, a jail, but the law had not been on her side. She had been unable to stop the officials from claiming and admitting her brother in a newly opened psych ward. She could hardly tell them that Peter was a werewolf, and that a measly hospital room would not be able to keep him in.

 

At first, Peter had gone with the officials out of spite for Talia. Even Derek, tiny as he had been, had understood the bitterness, the grief that consumed Peter. He had been sad too, sad to see her favourite aunt be killed, felt the cold, empty space in their bond where Olivia’s warmth once wrapped around his heart. Losing a pack member was like losing a limb. But even as the house filled with mourning, his uncle's sorrow had turned into something else.

 

Something fiery, raging. As if the blood underneath his skin was boiling with anger and insanity, ready to burst out at a moment's notice, much like a volcano.

 

Talia had overseen the administration of Peter into the hospital, and every day since that Derek was allowed to visit his uncle, there was nothing left of the man he once knew. The smell of medicine so strong and acid it made his small nose wrinkle. At the time he hadn't understood why Peter had stopped talking. Why he'd only stare at the wall blankly, no emotions crossing his face or scent. Why he was always in his bed, arms secured in tight leather bands against the bed.

 

He knew now.

 

He arrives to the room that they once held Peter in. It's tiny, like he remembers it being. There is the bare bones of a bed left, everything salvageable long since stolen. Since the beds were mostly bolted onto the floor, almost every single room still held one of those rusty skeletons. It was unnerving.

 

The room holds nothing else. Just the bed, and a small window with bars on the outside, creating the illusion of a jail rather than a warm, safe hospital ward.

 

Then again, most of the patients admitted back then were more prisoners and victims than nothing else. The mortality rate of the hospital was higher than the average, the patients coming up with more and more ways to effectively end their lives.

 

It wasn't until the information came that Peter had killed himself, that Talia got suspicious. There was no way a man drugged like an elephant, strapped onto the bed, only a shell of a person he once was, would even think to do that. Wouldn't be physically able to do it.

 

Then the story was changed. An inmate, another patient had killed Peter. They'd even come up with a very clever story of how it could've had happened, had the accused man truly gone insane and done the unforgivable deed. But all the wolves could hear the lie. Even Derek, fourteen summers then, could smell the anger, the fear lingering in the air, as much of it from living as from the dead.

 

An investigation was started, and deputy Stilinski had been the main official in charge of it. That's when the Beacon Hills Mental Memorial had gone from the image of trying to save people from themselves, to a bone chilling horror story.

 

The headmaster of the hospital back then had been a man of innovation, something that quickly turned into manic belief that certains methods could be used to cure all mental illnesses. It included cutting pieces of the patient's body away, limbs, teeth, toes. Most of the operations didn't get consent from the family of the patient, but were executed anyway.

 

It seemed that the whole personnel were more bloodthirsty and insane than most of their patients.

 

As the news was covered in every single available platform, the officials had no choice but to listen to the justified outrage of the people and act accordingly.

 

The place was shut down and emptied then, with the whole staff imprisoned under different categories, most of them which included cold blooded murder, torture, illegal confinement, abuse of all kind. . . The building was left empty and locked, waiting for the government approval and funding to start something else in the space, but in the end, nobody did anything, and the place was left to crumble.

 

A year after that, when Kate came into his life with a whirlwind of something new and foreign, sweet artificial smell of strawberry bubblegum following her everywhere, Derek had been swept away completely. He'd only ever heard of hunters in bedtime stories, and thought of it to only be a scare tactic as to not let out the truth to the mundane, the oblivious society. He'd never been in contact with wolfsbane, his family living in peace for centuries before, pack after pack flourishing, blooming under the author of each and every Hale Alpha.

 

It wasn't until that fifteenth summer that Derek truly got the meaning of loss, as he inhaled ash and smoke and the smell of burnt flesh. Devastation wasn't a feeling he was familiar with, grief of such magnitude that it left him numb and paralyzed for weeks. And as their house collapsed in a roar, the flames hungry for the dry wood, Derek could smell it.

 

The sweet scent of strawberry bubblegum. _Kate_.

 

Guilt, overwhelming and vehement had filled him then. He knew now, why Kate had come after him. Why she allowed his awkward tumbling with his words, why she tolerated his inexperience in everything. Why she let him hold her, scent her. He thought she didn't know what it meant, that she would just find his nuzzling endearing.

 

He had been a blind fool. And now his family was dead.

 

He'd heard Laura scream and sob as the Alpha powers were passed onto her, the salty scent of tears mixing with the bitter odor of her sweat. She'd raged and screamed and howled, but there was no answer to her calls. Only a little brother shattering next to her, clutching onto the keys of his father's Camaro.

 

Neither of them had been able to go near fire ever since.

 

And as if life hadn't been cruel enough up until then, when Derek had been 20, in the autumn nearing his 21st birthday, Kate got a hold of Laura too. He found out she had died the second it happened, but it took several months of finding all the pieces of her body, Kate leaving a trail of 'love notes' for him to find. Kate never got a glimpse of him despite her various efforts of capturing him, but she could definitely hear his mournful howls.

 

And now, when the California autumn had gradually turned to unusually cold, early winter weaving its way through golden leaves of the nature, Derek quietly padded over to the only place left that held the last fractions of traces of his massacred pack.

 

The door creaks, uneven and off its hinges when he pushes it gently closed. Dust speckles dance against the moonlight, soft light illuminating the room. Derek inhales deeply, the faded scents of the space filling his nostrils. He filters through them carefully, meticulously, until he finds what he's looking for. At the bed where it's placed against a wall, Peter's scent still lingers. The scent is barely a whiff, a remaining echo of a living person from years and years ago, but Derek finds it.

 

His paws hit the hard metal body of the bunk as he jumps on it. He curls near the head where the scent is strongest, his snout nestled between his feet, able to nose against the wall. The memory of Peter's gentle hands running against his fur, his familiar laughter and his bright intelligent eyes make him whine in distress. Grief and heartbreak fills his chest, reopening the raw wounds that never got to heal properly. He longs to howl for his family, for every person that's ever loved him, howl until his throat is sore and bloody, bare his belly and wait for his alpha to come get him home. For his kin to wrap their arms around him and soothe him, murmur affections to him, to comfort him in his desolated sorrow.

 

But the painful fact was that nobody was left to hear it. The howl, should he release it, would only echo in the night sky, empty and unanswered, a small, broken last cry. So he whines and whimpers his sorrows, gnawing his paws bloody, until sleep mercifully drowns him into darkness.

 

\--

 

When Derek wakes up next, it's to the sensation of being watched. He stiffens, fur standing in the back of his neck. He opens his eyes slowly, barely keeping the flash of his eyes under control. There's a man crouched on the doorway, elbows leaning against his knees, hands supporting his face. He has an amused expression on his face, though Derek can't smell his scent. Just the steady, pitter patter of the man's heart.

 

''I don't think that's a very comfortable sleeping place.''

 

Derek lifts his head carefully, eyeing the man. He coils his muscles tight, ready to attack or flee at a moment's notice. The stranger is blocking his only exit, and since Derek can't smell him, he too must not be mundane. The man cocks his head and grins.

 

''You're bigger than I initially thought.''

 

At that, Derek growls, baring his teeth. Rising to his feet, he tries to make himself look even more massive. A less attractive target to whatever this man is planning. He's not an alpha, not even a beta anymore, since he holds no bonds to any pack, but his status as a lone wolf doesn't affect his overall bulk. He'd trained his muscles, wanting to be as strong as possible for Laura, to protect her. He brings his growl up a notch, sending a clear warning message.

 

The man surprises him though. He doesn't cow away like Derek hopes he would, but neither do his pupils dilate in bloodthirst like the most hunter's' eyes do. Instead the man sobers, grin vanishing for a thin line, and he lifts his hands up in surrender.

 

''I'm not here to cause you trouble dude. Not many would voluntarily sleep in a place like this, so I figured you must have a very pressing reason to be here. And it's totally not to pester me at least, since you've got no spray paint or tents and flashlights and whatnot. And you certainly don't look like someone who'd sleep in an abandoned mental institute for kicks.''

 

The man quiets for a moment, staring at Derek's defensive pose.

 

''I'm Stiles,'' the man, Stiles, says. Wiggles his fingers in a greeting. He snorts at Derek's unimpressed expression.

 

''I could always do for some company,'' Stiles muses. ''You look stoic enough and quiet enough to bear my incessant rambling. I like to talk out loud about things. It fills up the quiet that this building is prone to, since I’m here all my lonesome. Well. Most of the time.’’ The man stares at him for a moment, like he’s waiting for a response, and then seems to come to a realization and makes a face. ‘’Oh. Right. You probably don’t mind the quiet if this is the place you’ve chosen to stay in. Not that I’m implying that you’ve decided to move in here. You could just be hopping in and out! Just, you know. The people available for a visit are pretty uh, down to zero. Well, one. But I don’t really count since you didn’t even know I live in the building.’’

 

Stiles snorts when Derek doesn’t respond. ‘’You know, most people find it too scary to even stand ten minutes staying in here. They’re quaking with fear even before they’ve gotten past the spiked fence that surrounds the grounds. Squirreling away like startled rabbits even from the tiniest of sounds.’’ He shrugs. ‘’But then again, you've sure got the claws and the teeth to ward off any unsolicited strangers. That could be useful too.''

 

When Derek doesn't even blink, continuing to growl lowly, Stiles sighs.

 

''Come on, man. I bet you've got nobody left either.’’

The man clearly implies to Derek’s lack of pack, the way his ribs stick prominently to his sides, his fur a little rough from the lack of nutrients, clear signs of a packless omega. The reminder hurts, like shards of glass being raked against his heart. Derek exposes his sharp teeth a little more. Stiles doesn’t seem to notice.

‘’We could be a team, you know? You could, I don’t know, stay in your fur and wouldn't even have to shift back if you didn’t want to! I can talk for the both of us. I've also got a warm, comfy bed downstairs, indoor plumbing that still works, and real food. Like, I could probs even go to In 'N' Out to get some shit if you wanted. Money's not an issue.''

 

Stiles stands up, dusting imaginary dust specks off his jeans. His stance suddenly turns a little awkward. ''I won't force you, you know? Just think about it though. I think we would both benefit from a, a, I don't even know what, but it would certainly make everything easier with two people. Well, person and a half. You've got your fur, which, that's pretty impressive dude. It like, gleams in the moonlight or some shit. You could totally win some furry ladies with - ''

 

Derek snaps his jaw, growling even louder. He takes a menacing step closer to the human, and Stiles lifts his hands up again.

 

''Whoah! Easy there buddy. Jesus. No women for you, I get it. Just me and mine.’’ There’s a moment of stiff staring between them, before Stiles just shrugs, clasping his hands together behind his back. ‘’If you like, wanna take me up on the offer of food and beds, just, I don't know. Follow my scent or howl or something. I'll come get you. Since I don't think you're hiding a phone anywhere in there,’’ the man tries peeking behind Derek, searching probably for any human possessions, which Derek left all in his Camaro. Which the hunters then burned down to prevent Derek from escaping. When all Stiles can see is the gleaming metal of the bed, he makes a face and nods, “Ooookay, no phones anywhere on you, gotcha.''

 

Derek flicks his ears. Even if he _had_ a phone, or anything valuable at his person, he sure as hell wouldn’t let the kid take a look at any of them, lest he steal anything. His fingers look long and thin and agile, tools for stealthy pickpocketing.

 

Stiles frowns, shaking his head. ''You know, if we get into this new companionship, I don't think it's very polite if you try to bite my fingers off every two minutes. The growling will certainly get a little repetitive.''

 

Giving the man a baleful look, Derek sits back on his haunches. Stiles winks at him.

 

“I’ll grow on you yet! I’ve been told I can be annoyingly persistent. I’ll let you know that us Stilinski men have always been mulishly stubborn.”

 

When Derek gnashes his teeth in irritation, Stiles just laughs and steps back.

 

''Yeah yeah. Smell ya later, dude.'' Stiles waves as he exits the room, and when Derek quickly follows him to the endless hallway that expands on both sides for long strides, Stiles has vanished.

 

\---

 

It takes Derek two days of mourning, rubbing himself against the spots that Peter must've touched the most, until even the finest traces of his uncle vanish underneath his own.

 

When it happens, he panics, snuffling along the closed hallway for any old traces. He doesn't find any, predictably, and it makes his body wreck with tremors, blood feeling like ice water in his veins. After tracking around the floor like a caged animal, with all evidence of Peter ever staying there gone, he goes back to the room.

 

There, he howls, long and mournful, his heartbreak tearing into the night.

 

Stiles comes stumbling into the room not ten minutes later. His eyes are wide, heart palpating frantically against his chest as he catches his breath.

 

''Dude,'' he pants, ''That was _so fucking loud_ . And long and you're still - Stop _howling_ , damnit! Do you want the entire damn police station come frolicking around for a loose animal? 'Cause they would. I _know_ they would. That's how they got Scotty in the first place, and that's how he got himself _killed_ , man. Just, God, I get it, okay? I get it.''

 

His tone gentles. ''I get it. You're sad. You probably don't even realize but your grief is affecting the slumbering.” He gestures at the walls. “ They've grown restless, the building nearly shaking with sympathy for you. But you gotta cut the howling out. We don't want the unsolicited visitors. The ghosts I reckon, are enough.''

 

Derek cuts his cry, turning it into whimpers and whines. Stiles comes to sit next to him, keeping a foot long distance when Derek hunkers deeper into the corner during his approach. ''I get it,'' he soothes, and his heartbeat doesn't lie.

 

He’s about to say something else, the man’s mouth opening in an inhale, but suddenly he stills. His eyes go distant, as if he’s hearing something out of Derek’s range, his lips parting slightly. Stiles stays like that for a few frozen moments, before he physically shakes himself back, something wicked and cold gathering in his gaze, an excited smirk gracing his face.

 

‘’Well, well,’’ he says, standing up, ‘’I’m afraid we’re gonna have to revisit this conversation another time. Halloween _sure is_ a busy time for me.’’ He looks positively gleeful about it. ‘’ Looks like we have some brave visitors closing in on us. I think I’m gonna have to go greet our uninvited guests. Don’t want to appear as a terrible host, you see. Gotta give them the experience they have come here for.’’

 

He tucks his hand inside the front pocket of his hoodie and brings out a sandwich and a water bottle, placing them on the iron board of the bed. For a second, Derek wonders just how bad in shape he’s actually gotten himself if he hadn’t even smelled the goods before he was presented with the physical evidence of them. ‘’In the interest of keeping you alive, I really suggest you eat those. I’ll see you later, after I’ve had some - Well.’’

 

The man brushes his fingers through his hair, blinking almost bashfully underneath his long lashes. ‘’It’s been awhile since I’ve had any fun with anyone, so. I might not be able to come up in a couple days. If you need me, I’ll know. I don’t know what I was thinking when I told you to howl last time. Please don’t do that. As much fun as playing with the officers of the law is, I’d rather not draw any attention towards the place for a little while.’’

 

Stiles turns to leave before throwing a look over his shoulder. ‘’And I mean it. You really should consider eating and drinking. There’s a select few very interested in your well being.’’ He gives the wolf a _look_ and exits with a _later, dude._

 

Long moments after Stiles has departed, Derek takes a look of the goods. He _is_ thirsty. Really fucking thirsty, if he’s being honest. And the sandwich wafts off a delicious, meaty smell that offers the promise of bacon and beef cutlet and red pepper salami. It makes his glands salivate involuntarily. He’s been chased for so long that it’s been almost a year of scavenging trash and hunting small rodents, none which have ever filled him to the brim, but has always quieted the caterwauling of his stomach. But a fresh cut meat with a barely-taken-out-of-the-oven bread - how could he possibly refuse?

 

He thinks about shifting. He hasn’t stretched himself into his human form in a long while, finding it easier to just disappear into the shadows in his wolf fur. On that, Stiles was absolutely right. His fur gleamed black like ink or like late winter night sky, making blending into darkness so effortless. Were his kin rich and flourishing and _alive_ , Derek would be a worthy beta of being courted into other packs. He was loyal and selfless, putting his family and pack first and foremost to himself, following rules to the dot, not hesitating to improvise should a reason occur.

 

Though, he thinks with a sinking stomach, he wasn’t all that worthy, the reason his family was buried six feet underground laying on his shoulders. He sags back onto the hard, cold metal with a heavy heart, staring at the treat in front of him, but unable to face all the cruel thoughts of his human brain, too ashamed of his own actions to nourish his body. Perhaps he is fated to starve to death, to prolong his own torture, let his body painfully sink into itself, until even a werewolf healing won’t be able to keep his heart beating, allowing it to slowly and gradually to stop pulsing blood to his organs, but not before he knows how it feels when his insides are eating themselves, fire and acid burning away all that he is.

 

He closes his eyes and rests his head on his paws, turned away from the food. The wolf cannot cry, and so tears won’t prick his eyes, but his heart is collapsing and all Derek can do is let the grief swallow him whole.

  


\---

  


Derek startles awake to a _‘tsk’_ sound and a hand gripping at his snout. He tries to yank his head back and out of reach, but the hand holding him tightly is surprisingly strong and he’s unable to force distance between him and Stiles.

 

And it _is_ Stiles, the man smelling like he’s freshly showered, like shampoo and soap and laundry detergent. He’s still hiding his emotions, his basic scent, but Derek’s not nearly as bothered of it anymore. If he’s going to die anyway, who cares of whose hand it is that does the final blow?

 

‘’I clearly remember telling you to eat, did I not?’’ The man says, making eye contact with Derek. His eyes look furious, his mouth downturned to a thin, angry line. Then his grip softens considerably, finding something in Derek’s gaze that makes him sigh heavily.

 

‘’Sorry. I thought you’d died or something. You were just lying there, immobile for two whole days.’’

 

Derek pulls his head away once Stiles grip goes lax, licking at his mutton chops, easing away the sting. If he wasn’t a werewolf, if he was just a fragile human, he’s certain he’d have Stiles’ fingerprints bruising up his face. He sits up.

 

Stiles takes the sandwich and fiddles with it, the meat and butter having curdled over the past few days. ‘’I honestly thought you’d have eaten. I put in that sandwich the rest of my favorite cutlets I had in the fridge. Poured my heart and soul in it, dude. I mean, even most abused dogs wouldn’t have ignored that sort of treat.’’

 

Derek growls a little at the dog comment, and Stiles’ lips uplift a little from the corners. Then he sobers up, turning a calculative look on Derek.

 

Derek turns away, exposing a little bit of fang. Stiles’ stare is uncomfortably _intense_.

 

‘’You’ve been kept by the hunters then?’’

 

Every muscle in Derek stiffens again, the fur on his neck raising.

 

‘’Hit the nail right on, huh?’’ Stiles asks. He thinks for a moment and says, ‘’Did they offer you food, just to take it away and laugh about it? Torturing you for being so foolish to believe them? Or did they put something in there that would hurt you, but you knew you’d have to eat it because otherwise you’d die?’’

 

Closing his eyes, Derek wills all of those memories back to the black box he tries to stuff them into. Too long he spent in captivity, thinking the hunters wanted something from him, information or cooperation or anything useful. It had been more than a punch to the gut to realize six months later that they’d kept him just because he had ‘rugged good looks’ and ‘would be a perfect baby daddy if not for the tainted blood and wrong species’. They had had no idea that Derek was a Hale, that his family used to have ties to multiple supernatural groups and packs and herds, knowing people high and low all over the world. They’d just captured and kept him because he had a good looking face and the body of a sculpted Greek God.

 

That’s all. That’s all they wanted from him, the only reason they had him.

 

Laura had saved him back then. He’s got nobody left to find him now.

 

A warm hand comes to softly pet the fur on his head. It drags him back to present, away from the cold cellars and hot wires of electricity. He blinks his eyes open and looks up, growling in half assed attempt at warning the man away. He doesn’t move though.

 

‘’I have no idea where you just went in your head,’’ Stiles murmurs, ‘’But it didn’t sound all that good, dude. And I obviously caused that, so, uh, sorry. I can be a little heartless sometimes.’’

 

Derek lets Stiles caress his head a couple more times before he sighs, shaking himself from head to toe, making Stiles’ hand fall away.

 

Stiles takes the hint and takes a couple steps back, stuffing his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. For all that calculative, cold feeling the man emits, Derek thinks Stiles seems a lot like a lost kid that has no place to go and no social skills to make up for it.

 

He sees a lot of himself in Stiles. Which, seems a little odd since Derek’s fairly certain that in the time he spent passed out the last 48 hours, Stiles’ idea of ‘being a good host’ involved a lot of dismembering human beings. Skin being torn. Perhaps even limbs dissected away from unwilling participants. (He’s embarrassed now that he thought Stiles had meant _sex_ when he said he hadn’t had any ‘fun’ for awhile with anyone.)

 

He’s not sure if Stiles has even _noticed_ his white sneakers are completely soaked red with blood.

 

Stiles is an oddity, a strange twist of something dark and light, a stranger he wouldn't look twice at during daylight, but would change the side of the road if he ever came across him during night-time. There's cruelty hidden in the depths of his eyes, a contrast to the gentle hands that buried themselves into Derek’s thick fur not ten seconds ago.

 

‘’So if I got you that juicy big steak, do you think you would eat?’’

 

He sounds hopeful. Derek wonders briefly if Stiles is trying to actually lure him into a trap, coaxing him to trust and follow, only to end up dumped in a shallow ground for the coyotes to find.

 

But does it really matter, in the end? Derek did come here to die after all.

 

Derek stands up, a little wobbly on his feet, and looks up at Stiles expectantly. The man stares at him with wide eyes until his face breaks into a big, honest, grateful grin.

 

‘’Oh man, are you serious? You’re really coming? Fuck yeah!’’

 

As Stiles does a fist bump, Derek rolls his eyes and hops down from the bed, skirting around the man in favor of getting out of his uncle’s room. The hallway is as deserted as ever, but somehow the atmosphere seems a lot lighter than it was when Derek arrived. He avoids looking at the walls, still afraid of the ghosts that occupy the spaces between them.

 

‘’Come on,’’ Stiles says, gesturing towards the other end of the hall, opposite of where Derek initially entered the wing. ‘’I’ve got a shortcut this way. I don’t come up to the top floors much you know, because the roof seems like it might collapse even more if another storm hits. I do not want to end up a squishy, rotting meat blop, no siree.’’

 

Derek follows obediently, trailing after him.

 

‘’I live in the cellar, where the bunker and all the fun stuff is. Most of the wards aren’t heated up, water cut up when some of the pipes burst a couple winters ago, but since the space I live in is meant to be habitable in case of a nuclear attack, it’s got all the spare generators and goods the hospital itself hasn’t got. Sometimes I power up the whole building though, so babies like these,’’ Stiles says, stopping in front of a small, rusted elevator, patting the control panel outside ‘’will work in my favor.’’

 

He looks down at Derek. ‘’It’ll be a tight fit but if you can handle it, I can handle it too.’’

 

Derek takes stock on the lift. It’s almost like it’s taken straight out of some horror movie Laura used to watch with their mother. It’s flaking brown rust, looking like the wires winching the human-sized box up and down are all but ready to snap at the slightest of wrong tilts. The walls are only iron bars, and if anything went wrong and the lift would drop onto the elevator shaft at the bottom, Derek doesn’t think either of them would survive it. The iron walls would probably fold like a house of cards, their weight crushing the occupants immediately. Then again, if the electricity cut off or the system malfunctioned, they’d be trapped in.

 

Or, well. Stiles would probably be trapped in. Derek would still be able to strong-arm himself out of it.

 

He steps inside, the elevator immediately groaning dangerously. Derek gives it a dubious look.

 

Stiles grins, ‘’Atta boy,’’ and then stuffs himself in too, boxing Derek into a corner. Derek shivers when Stiles’ legs come in contact with his side, emitting warmth. It’s been too long since he’s had any casual contact with another living human, and it feels so good Derek wants to curl around it, sinking his claws and teeth into the vulnerable flesh, so that it won’t part from him ever again.

 

Stiles carefully closes the heavy doors, pushes the huge green button, as opposed to the huge red one, and they start their descend.

 

The cellar turns out to be a lot darker than the rooms upstairs. There’s no natural light peeking from anywhere, the only lights the small bulbs littered across the ceiling, buzzing faintly, emitting yellow light. The ventilation seems to be not working, and the air feels stuffy to Derek.

 

As Stiles walks, he explains, gesturing to doors and hallways. ‘’Okay, so this way is the staff changing rooms. They’ve got working showers, clean ones, though you might want to avoid the men’s side. There’s, hm, a little leftover incident from a couple months ago that I haven’t gotten about to clean just yet. The female bathrooms are in pretty good condition though.’’

 

They take a sharp turn left. ‘’That way leads to the institutional kitchen. It’s up those stairs. Underneath the kitchen, as you can see those three doors over there, are all refrigerators. There’s a freezer too, but it’s smaller and it’s just that door over there, on the other side.’’

 

Two hallways collide and twist. ‘’Those two are plain offices. That iron door right there is where they used to keep the drugs. That hallway over there leads to the gardens, a small hidden door that probably let the staff go up and about unnoticed. I think the first rooms on the end of that used to be kept as some sort of punishment rooms for like, misbehaving or some shit. There’s nothing in them but a lot of scritches, names and dates and places carved into the walls.’’

 

They pass rows and rows of rooms that have no nameplates on the doors, no indication of what it has been used for. Stiles seems to have peeked into every single one of them.

 

The sheer size of the place has got Derek dizzy. He wonders if the first time he wanders here alone, he’ll get hopelessly lost.

 

They keep walking.

 

‘’That over there is the staff common room. There’s like, couches and tables and all that. There’re some old ass computers too, but they’re like, ancient, so I haven’t even touched them.’’

 

‘’That over there is actually a swimming pool. I dunno if the residents ever got to use it, or was it for staff only, but there it is. It’s dried out now, but it wasn’t when I first came here. Not that I took a swim in it, but ah, a person or two did try it. It wasn’t very. . . Sanitary.’’

 

Derek refuses to even think about it.

 

They arrive at a huge door that Derek immediately knows to be the bunker door. There are faded signs for it on the exits. Stiles looks at him and says, ‘’And lastly, welcome to the Stilinski household. Mi casa es su casa and all that jazz.’’

 

He pushes the door open and slips in, leaving Derek a crack to squeeze himself inside. They walk for a few moments in a dark, cramped hallway, the ceiling so low Stiles has to bend forward a little as to not hit his head. When their entrance slams shut, dark swallows them. Stiles’ steps are confident, and Derek has no choice but to force himself forward. He’s been to worse places.

 

Then they come to equally as narrow door that’s also made of heavy iron. When Stiles heaves it open, light pools into the darkness.

 

As Stiles elbows himself inside, Derek follows.

 

The atmosphere changes immediately. There are brand new lamps that shine brightly, forcing Derek to blink rapidly to adjust to the light. The air is fresher than in the long, endless hallways, the air conditioner doing its job. There are throw rugs and huge plasma TV, placed in front of a plush, soft looking couch. (Derek wonders how the hell did Stiles manage to get any of that in but he’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to know.) In the corner is a small kitchen nook with a low humming refrigerator, the place filled with soft colors of different hues of wood.

 

It looks… Comfy. Cozy. And entirely bizarre contrast to the dilapidated hospital.

 

‘’There’s my bed behind that partition,’’ Stiles thumbs towards his left where he’s locked the door. ‘’There is the bathroom, if you, you know, ever decide to de-fur yourself, but before that happens, using the gardens is cool too, whatever floats your boat man.”

 

If he had a mouth that would twist that way, Derek would cringe.

 

“That’s my closet where I keep all my clothes and gear, and that computer corner over there is off limits, but anything else is fair game.’’

 

Derek follows Stiles’ gaze. The corner is shadowed in darkness but entirely visible. He walks closer, intrigued, and sees the six computer screens all laid out to make a one, huge surveillance nook. And that’s exactly what it is, Derek realizes, as he sees entrances and exits of all the doors on the hospital, hallways, gardens, different rooms, the kitchen, the showers, the freezer, the easy access part of the fence. . .

 

Jesus. Stiles has somehow managed to build eyes for himself all over the huge building. The images blink and change, and Derek can see how Stiles had found him as fast as he had.

 

He stares at the small icon of his uncle’s room.

 

Stiles comes to stand next to him. ‘’I’ve got my eyes on everywhere, literally, but I’ve also warded a bunch of the woods and roads surrounding the entire grounds, so even if someone was still after you, I’d know about it long before they even got close.’’

 

He wonders whether or not it was a hit and miss guess of Stiles’ that he’s being hunted, or if the hunters had actually come and gone by the place, circulating and pondering if Derek had gone in or not.

 

If _they_ should be bothered to even check. Though the sum of money Kate has apparently invested in his bounty, they really should try harder, he thinks bitterly. His head is almost literally placed on a silver platter.

 

Clapping his hands together, Stiles says cheerfully, ‘’I promised someone a good ol’ steak, did I not? Come on, dude, hop onto the sofa and relax. I’ll make you the best meal you’ve ever had.’’

 

Derek is too tired to do anything but follow.

  
  


\------

  


The next few days Derek follows Stiles around. He gets to know him better, and the feeling of unease and fear evaporates the more comfortable he gets with the layout of the building. He likes the garden best. It’s clearly constructed to make people feel at peace, fountains and vine doors and flower benches littering all over the paths and grassfields. The high, electrified and spiked fence is cleverly hidden behind the strategically placed trees, creating an illusion of freedom for the inpatients.

 

Well. Did. The folk crossing over and visiting the gardens are more likely to ignore the serenity of it, the adrenaline rush of fear coloring their vision.

 

Stiles talks a lot when he goes about his day. Derek finds out that Stiles was orphaned when he was just sixteen summers, his father getting killed in an ambush meant for a neighboring pack that some passing hunters had set up. It’s how he was made aware of the supernatural, when his best friend had been bitten and turned by the alpha, the woman gone feral with the decimation of her pack. Stiles had drowned his grief with research of the magical, helping his best friend, Scott, to control his instincts. They’d been approached by Deaton of all people, Derek remembering him vaguely from interactions with his mother, and the vet had taught Stiles a lot about protecting his human self in a world where guns were no longer the deadliest weapon.

 

But Scott had foolishly fallen in love with a hunter, and within months of their freshman year of high school, Scott’s control had faltered, and he had one full moon exposed himself to the very hunter that was his new love’s father.

 

Derek learns that Stiles had gone into hiding then, finding solace in the empty halls of the asylum, especially since he had easily been able to kill the hunters responsible for both his father’s and Scott’s deaths. Everything down in the cellars were soundproof.

 

‘’And with all the money that came from the state as a compensation for my dad’s death just tinged into my bank account, along with all of my dad’s savings and the price that came once I turned eighteen and could sell the house we lived in. So now I’m kinda, dunno, just living here for the moment, trying to figure out what to do next. I mean,’’ Stiles chuckles ruefully, ‘’I’m already unfit for the society at large, since all I want right now is to kill every single hunter out there who has murdered the innocent supernatural creatures in cold blood.’’

 

Derek nods, his tail swishing where he’s laying on the ground as Stiles goes through his monitors. If Kate and his henchmen dared to cross the border for Derek, he wonders if Stiles would help him kill all of them.

 

‘’You know, I stumbled into a hunter jail once,’’ Stiles says after awhile. ‘’They kept weres like you imprisoned, testing their limits, healing, all that shit. All of the captives looked more or less like, well. Like tortured animals. Ready for slaughter.’’

 

Looking up, Derek sees Stiles already gazing at him. ‘’I saw all of their data. I saw what they did to them, how they forced the humanity out of the poor souls, letting the animal onto the surface as to protect themselves.’’

 

Resting his head back to his paws, avoiding Stiles’ knowing eyes, Derek offers a small, chuffing sound of agreement.

 

‘’I have no idea how long you’ve been on the run for, or how long you’ve been kept in captive, but if you’re stuck into your wolf form and want out of it, nod once.’’

 

Derek shakes his head. He’s not stuck per se. He could easily stretch back to his human form, his long limbs and his brain that processes things less instinctually and more with his bleeding heart. He just doesn’t want to. Right now, he’d feel more vulnerable as a human than he does a wolf.

 

‘’So you just feel more comfortable as a furred creature of the night for now, huh? Gotcha, big guy,’’ Stiles agrees easily. Then he muses, ‘’It would be cool to know your name, though. I keep referring you as a big bad wolf in my head all the time, which I think would make me the equivalent of the red riding hood in this scenario, and I’m not sure I’m too pleased with that.’’

 

Derek snorts. He raises to his feet, lifting his paws up to the table, nosing Stiles’ fingers off the keypad and looks over to the screen. It’s less trouble than he thinks of it, to move the mouse and click on an empty document. He carefully clacks on the keys with his nose, and only has to backpedal three times before he gets the words ‘ _Derek Hale_ ’ typed down.

 

Stiles squints at the screen and tries the words out loud. ‘’Derek Hale.’’

 

A few seconds pass.

 

‘’Wait, _whoah_ , you’re Derek Hale? Like, _Derek Hale_ , Derek Hale? Derek of the Hale family that got killed in that fire - ‘’

 

Dropping his feet back to the ground Derek lets out a little warning growl. He doesn’t want to think about it. As much as he’d scorned the dead friend Scott for being such a fool as to hang out with a hunter, he’s done the exact same thing. Although in his case, he _wishes_ he could’ve died instead of all of his kin. It would’ve felt more justified, more in balance with the nature.

 

But he lies on the bed as he makes it, and the truth of the matter was that he had killed his family and was still paying the price of it years and years later.

 

There’s something sharp twisting in Stiles’ scent as he keeps staring at Derek, awkward silence surrounding them. Derek can practically see the gears turning inside Stiles’ head as he comes to his conclusions.

 

‘’Not a faulty wiring then, huh. Hunters?’’

 

Derek gives one sharp nod.

 

‘’The ones after you now?’’

 

Another sharp nod.

 

‘’Well, shit,’’ Stiles says, and Derek sees his face widening into a feral grin. ‘’If they ever cross me and mine,’’ he says with dark glee, ‘’they’ll be _so fucking sorry_ for all of their life choices. I can promise you that.’’

 

Derek lies back down with a sigh, feeling  oddly comforted by that. It’s.. Nice, to have a powerful, smart little fox on his side for a change. It’s like something slots into place, evening the odds in this game of cats and mice, and for once, Derek doesn’t feel like the mouse in this scenario.

 

 


	2. ..I'll hunt down your pursuers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! It's still technically 31st of October if AO says it is, right? 
> 
> This chapter's a little intense, so I updated the tags; please heed them.
> 
> TW: Forced piss drinking, past underage, past non-con whipping, past rape

 

Predictably, the hunters start circling around the premises after Stiles makes it his mission to capture them. Derek plays the role of the lure, chancing a leisure stroll through the preserve to check out his childhood home. It looks more awful than it did when he’d seen it last, the years not having been kind to the structure of it. Teenagers and drunkards have taken over, destroying what little had been left to destroy. 

 

Derek, in the face of the sources of his guilt and nightmares and grief, feels almost numb and detached as he prowls around the property. He can smell that the hunters have been there, sees the blinking lights of quarry cams attached all over. He hightails out of there at the first rumble of an engine closing in on his location, running like the devil is on his heels as he escapes back to the safety of Stiles.

 

Mere twelve hours after Derek shows his face, the hunters chase his trail to the hospital. It happens far more quickly than Derek had anticipated.

 

One moment he’s laying on the couch in the small bunker, debating between taking a nap or herding Stiles out to get some food, and the next Stiles is cheering from his surveillance nook, happily crowing at the images of the hunters trying to find an accessible way in.

 

Derek jumps down, his paws clacking against the cement floor. Stiles makes some space for him, allowing him to see it for himself.

 

He immediately recognizes two of the henchmen stalking through the woods. They’re bulky, wide shouldered twins called Jason and Jace, some ex state champions in swimming. All of the aqua-based creatures he’d seen in his time in captivity were delivered by those two. Both of them are ruthless and sadistic, thirsty for blood in a way that no sane animal is. The ghost of their punches and touches travel all over his skin. He shivers.

 

The next footage is from the road. Familiar black SUV’s are rumbling their way closer to the hospital. He knows for certain one of them is Kate’s, her license plate burned into his mind as she hasn’t changed it since Derek was a teenager. The cars must at least be driven by one person, though hunters prefer to work in pairs and groups, so the company at large must be at least five people in total, though more likely more. 

 

It sends a spike of worry throughout his body. He and Stiles are mere two, and even if they have the home field advantage, there’s still shortage of helping hands and ears.. Stiles doesn’t seem all too worried though.

 

‘’What do you think?’’ Stiles asks, leaning against his computer chair. ‘’Are they five? Ten? Do they have automatic weapons or handguns? Are they good in close range combat or are they more sniper-friendly?  Allison preferred bow and arrow, and Chris electricity and wolfsbane bombs. Do you think they’ll try to set up traps for you?’’

 

The tips of his toes itch for the shift back to human, the amount of questions being barreled at him a little overwhelming. He wants to answer, but most of his answers would be ‘I don’t know’. The only thing he knows for  _ certain  _ is that Kate will want to see Derek close by, and if she’s able to, she’ll haul his ass to one of her torture cellars, so she’s most likely to not use anything lethal on him, or anything she wouldn’t be able to fix. It will hurt him, yes, but it wouldn’t kill him.

 

And,  _ huh _ . If they’re only after Derek, just to detain him for Kate, as they can’t possibly be aware of Stiles and the extent of his surveillance, then their choices of weapons will most likely range in pre-set traps meant to disarm and immobilize him, and not automatic firearms. They’ll  _ have  _ to go easy on him.

 

The shift, as it overtakes him, surprises him just as much as it does Stiles. His fur recedes, human skin taking its place, and in mere seconds Derek is sitting buck naked on the floor of the bunker, goosebumps littering his skin where the fur doesn’t protect him anymore.

 

‘’Whoah,’’ Stiles says, eyes the size of saucers, mouth agape. Derek blinks, shocked momentarily. He raises his hand where he’s still got all five fingers, wiggling them just to prove he can.

 

The motion seems to kick Stiles’ brain into gear as he practically jumps up from the chair, hands impotently hovering over Derek’s bare form. ‘’Dude, you okay? I - That was freaking  _ awesome _ . The way the wolf just, poof, gone! The bones cracking was a little gross though, not gonna lie, at least there isn’t blood - Are you cold? You’re naked, of course you’re cold, just, wait a second, I’ll go grab some clothes for you man, I’ll just - ‘’

 

And then he’s gone. Derek shakes his head and carefully, if a little shakily, heaves himself up to his two human legs. It feels weird, after months and months of not shifting back from his wolf form. He feels tall, like a swinging pine trying to keep its roots in the ground as the wind pushes it back and forth. Tamping the soles of his feet steadily on the ground, he feels a little better.

 

‘’Here,’’ Stiles says, making Derek jerk lightly as he comes from behind him. ‘’I think this shirt will fit you, since you’re bulkier than I am and this was one of my ex-classmate’s who was like, huge in the shoulder department and I stole this shirt because it was comfortable and I don’t think he’ll want it back after all these years since he doesn’t even know I took it. The colors are pretty, uh, eye-catching, but hey, they’re the color of them Mets, so it should be cool, right? It’s cool?’’

 

Derek nods, accepting the shirt and the grey sweatpants that are folded with it. Stiles turns away as he dresses, the man’s cheeks flushed red. 

 

After he’s dressed himself, he feels a little awkward. His limbs feel all foreign to him.

 

‘’I uh,’’ Stiles says, cutting through the silence, ‘’I had no idea werewolves could get tattoos. How does it not heal right away? Do you have your own sort of herbal ink that you can use? Did it hurt when you got it? I always wanted a tattoo but I’m terrified of needles so like, I could never even donate blood without passing out, let alone a tattoo. Uh.’’

 

Clearing his throat, Derek croaks out, ‘’Can I get some water?’’ He’d go get it himself if he didn’t feel so damn unsteady.

 

‘’Oh, right! Water, yes, I can do that. One water coming right up!’’

 

Derek manages to somehow make his way to the couch and sit down, though he’s pretty sure he looked like an awkward penguin trying to shuffle from point A to point B. It’ll take awhile to get used to. At least the clothes are of soft material, easy to move in.

 

He drinks all of the offered water, the bottle popping underneath his fingers. Stiles sits down too, next to him, fidgeting.

 

Derek coughs after he’s done, rubbing his throat and speaks slowly. ‘’A werewolf can get a, um, a tattoo if you use fire and flower ash in ink. But, human tattoos are similar, fades over time.’’

 

Stiles nods his head in rapid succession.

 

‘’As for the hunters,’’ he says, clumsily forming the words in his mouth, ‘’I think they’re here for me. They know me, know the price of my bounty, so they’ll use guns to hurt, not kill or uh, badly injure.’’

 

‘’There’s a bounty on your head?’’

 

Chancing a glance, Derek sees the calculative look on Stiles’ face. If the man wanted to, he could effortlessly give Derek over to the hunters and claim his money. 

 

‘’Yes,’’ he agrees haltingly, all of his muscles stiffening in the face of danger. ‘’There is.’’

 

Stiles seems to immediately get the source of his unease and lifts his hands up in surrender. ‘‘Hey man, no, I’m not thinking of giving you up. I promised I’d be on your side, did I not?’’

 

‘’Money can.. Corrupt,’’ Derek says. 

 

Snorting, Stiles pats his thigh reassuringly. ‘’Money is so not something I want man. I’ve got enough for a lifetime for loitering around without doing anything. What I  _ want _ ,’’ he says, the dark glint returning to his eyes, ‘’is to test my new toys I got, and you being here, luring these people in for me to play with, is exactly what I want.’’

 

Derek regards the man for a moment. What he sees in Stiles, his posture, his scent, the ideas he has, the kind of man he is, cements his decision. This place is a safe haven for him. Stiles is a capable Alpha, worthy of being followed, protective of the supernatural kin of Derek’s. 

 

‘’Okay,’’ he says finally. 

 

‘’Okay?’’ Stiles asks.

 

‘’Yeah. Okay.’’

 

‘’Great! So we’ll do everything like we planned? You’ll lead them to a chase and bring them to me, and then I’ll take care of the rest.’’

 

‘’If they - go different paths, do I still - Do I bring them all to you, one by one, or do you want me to uh, to detain some of them somewhere else?’’

 

‘’Nah,’’ Stiles says flippantly, ‘’I can take care of myself and them. I know you haven’t seen the playroom yet, but it’s so easy to capture people there it’s kind of really pathetic. Or sad. The staff named the room ‘ _ behaviour rehabilitation center’ _ and boy, did they deliver with  _ that _ . When I first got here I didn’t know what half of the stuff in there even  _ was _ . I’m surprised they didn’t clear everything out when the police got involved, but I guess nobody bothered to since the whole building got shut down, pronto.’’

 

Derek gives his agreement and they stand up. Stiles is looking at him with an expression Derek can’t quite decipher. 

 

‘’What?’’

 

‘’You realize you have very expressive eyebrows, right? Like, you’re frowning now but I can practically  _ see  _ the worry you’re exuding. Look,’’ Stiles says earnestly, ‘’I can handle myself. I’ve taken down bigger and badder people than these fools, but you’re the actual victim here. If you want to stand aside and not participate, that’s fine. If these are the hunters that have been after you for years now and exposing yourself to them makes you terrified or sick, I can totally capture all of them by myself and you can just snooze on the couch. No hard feelings, I promise.’’

 

Derek works his jaw for a moment, claws appearing from the tips of his fingers. Because Stiles is right. Derek is absolutely terrified of coming face to face with Kate yet again. She’s the one human that has managed to ruin his life, not just by seducing his fifteen year old self and killing his family in its entirety, but because  _ she still keeps affecting  _ him, years later. All of his decisions have been colored with his trauma of her. If he gets a whiff of strawberry bubblegum he’ll fall into such horrible panic attacks that it used to take Laura hours to get him to really snap out of it. 

 

Kate has ruined him for any and all relationships. He tried so hard to get into a routine of normalcy by trying to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, only to fail spectacularly when all he could do was to compare those people and their mannerisms with Kate. Trying to see if the people were just putting up an act, trying to decipher their true motives for dating him. Were they another huntress, seeking an easy access to the Alpha in order to kill them? Were they an omega in desperate need of either a pack or the power of an Alpha? 

 

Laura used to call it hypervigilance. She didn’t shame him for it though. Even if she didn’t understand the magnitude of Derek’s guilt, having no idea just how hunters were able to kill their whole family with nobody being alerted in time.

 

But now. He has a chance to get rid of her for once and for all. She won’t be able to keep breathing against his neck with her taunts and her laugh and her scent, if she’s buried six feet underground.

 

Derek wants to see the life pour out of her cruel eyes, hear the beating of her heart stop.

 

He wants her dead.

 

‘’Can I watch?’’

 

Stiles looks confused at the non-sequitur. ‘’Huh?’’

 

Biting his lip, Derek tries to elaborate. ‘’You. Killing Kate. Can I watch?’’

 

‘’No man, go ahead. I don’t mind an audience at all,’’ Stiles shrugs. ‘’You recognized one of them?’’

 

He nods jerkily. ‘’Her car. She’s - Hunted. Me. For years. She’s the one who - My family.’’

 

Realization dawns on Stiles’ face. The man’s heartbeat skyrockets, full body shiver wracking his frame. ‘’Oh no,’’ he breathes out excitedly, ‘’I do not mind you watching at all. I can, anything you want, I can do. Anything.’’

 

Derek thinks for a moment. ‘’I’ll think on it. You’ll make it hurt? For her?’’

 

‘’As much and as long as I can,’’ Stiles promises. It’s a sincere assurance, and Derek fully believes it.

 

‘’Also, the two men in the woods? Jason and Jace. They’re good at swimming. Hunt best in water. Ruthless.’’

 

‘’Ooh,’’ Stiles grins, ‘’Well, if that’s so, I’ll have to rethink about keeping the pool dry. Gotta meet them halfway in their preferred methods, hm? Ohh, I’m getting excited. Let’s go see where our new friends are adventuring now.’’

 

The images on the screen blink when they get back near the computers again, the cars being readily parked in some bushes that hide them from plain sight. Jason and Jace have found their way to the main grounds, just about to stuff themselves inside the garden through a human sized hole on the fence.

 

Stiles shoots Derek a feral grin, pulling him to a brief sideway hug. Before Derek has a chance to react, either positively or negatively, the touch is gone, leaving Derek reeling for more.

 

He sighs with content. There are tentative strings of a pack bond starting to from, the golden thread almost visible to Derek. He yearns for the comfort of an Alpha, the steady rock to anchor him, and by the looks of it, his not-so-human companion might just be it.

  
  


\---

  
  


The twins find Derek first. He’s actually not surprised about it, since they were the ones already in gear while the others were inside the safety of their cars. They recognize his face, even if they’ve never seen it before, at least not as a human, which lets Derek believe that Kate really has tried hunting him down this time. He doesn’t doubt that if the hunters have such thing as a public bulletin board, Derek’s face might be the one decorating it permanently.

 

‘’You!’’ The other of them says as he spots Derek, making his twin spin around so fast it looks like he gets a whiplash. ‘’Come on now, Hale. Game over,’’ he taunts. ‘’You’ve had your run. There’s nowhere to escape here. We sealed the entrance of the fence and put some traps all over. If you come quietly, we’ll make it less painful for you.’’

 

Derek snorts. As if. 

 

The other twin makes a face like he agrees with Derek’s justified reaction, but he covers it fast. Instead, he cajoles to Derek, ‘’We promise to not hurt you. We know Kate has tried capturing you for a long while now. You’ve been running and running and running. She’s chased you all across the states. You must be getting tired by now. If you come with us, we promise to put a bullet between your eyes before Kate can touch you, so she won’t be able to continue your torment. Please. Just come.’’

 

Derek takes a step back and shoots a grin. ‘’I’m all yours. . . If you can catch me first.’’

 

Then he turns, sprinting as fast as his foreign human feet allow him. There’s a door that leads to the basement part of the institute, the one part Derek hadn’t ventured yet and Stiles hadn’t showed him, but he was reassured that he would immediately know which door it was he was supposed to get the hunters to enter in. 

 

He hears his pursuers start running after him, and he keeps his pace just slow enough to not make it seem like he’s trying to let them see where he’s going, but fast enough that they’ll only be able to glimpse at him with no chances of either trying to shoot him or overrun him.

 

He ducks inside, following the straight line of the long hallway. Stiles had said to turn left at the first two-way choice, and then right on the second. He follows the directions, though he notices fairly quickly that he doesn’t even need them.

 

The stench of death and rotting human corpse is so pungent that Derek has to hold his breath as much as he can so he won’t stop to throw up. There are spots of red all over the floor now that he focuses on it, as well as handprints on the walls that are of suspicious color. The hunters won’t think much of it, knowing the history of the building, but Derek knows the trails to be fresh.

 

Less than a week old, fresh.

 

He picks up his pace when he hears the twins get closer. 

 

He finds the door he’s looking for just as easily as Stiles had told him he would. The overhead lights are almost all turned off, apart from a couple eerily blinking bulbs. It creates shadows everywhere, making the hallway seem more narrow than it is, leading the victim straight to the trap. 

 

Like moth to flame.

 

The words  _ ‘behaviour rehabilitation center _ ’ are almost completely been scratched off from the metal, the sign slightly crooked on top of the double doors. There are lights on inside the room and Derek can hear Stiles’ heart beating in frantic staccato, and to his surprise, there are another two unfamiliar heartbeats, though both of them are slower, more stagnant. 

 

Doubt creeps into his mind for two entire seconds before he shakes them off. Stiles had promised he wouldn’t hurt Derek. Or at least, he had told him he wouldn’t give him up to the hunters. Whoever is inside with the man, must be on Derek’s side. 

 

He barges in.

 

The smell of decay hits him so hard he has to physically just  _ stop _ , his hands flying up to cover his sensitive nose and mouth. Bile gathers immediately up to his throat and he gags. His hands quickly become wet from the excess saliva he tries to keep in his mouth, but the acid smell of rot abuses his senses relentlessly, and all he can do is try not to throw up. He blinks rapidly against the harsh lights, tears gathering in his eyes, such a contrast from the dingy cellar hallways that it almost  _ hurts _ .

 

He manages to stagger inside a couple more feet before a huge metal cage drops from the ceiling, trapping Derek efficiently inside. He startles, cowering down from the impact. A whine manages to escape his throat before he controls himself, whirling around to take the room more closer in, trying to pinpoint Stiles’ location. He can hear the twins barreling down, closing in on him. The small seeds of panic start to  swell up in his chest and Derek heaves, caged and cornered and  _ unsafe _ , caught like a cattle ready for slaughter --

 

‘’Look at the bottom of the cage Derek,’’ Stiles voice says, calm and collected. ‘’You’re not trapped. You can easily lift it off. No wolfsbane. Just plain old iron. But stay put. I need to capture Louie and Dewey.’’

 

Derek takes a couple frantic breaths before the words register enough in his brain for him to curb in the attack. The bars are filthy with what Derek can only guess to be fluids of a human(s), the floor faring no better, making him step back from the walls of the cage. The heavy weight on his chest simmers down with the sound of Stiles, and Derek forces himself to concentrate more on the man’s pulse than the smells of the room. 

 

Thank god his eyes are blurry enough that he can’t see how much of the colors inside the room are from things other than paint.

 

As the doors bang open, Derek whips around to face the two hunters. Their eyes lock onto his predicament right away, expressions turning smug. Jason shakes his head disbelievingly.

 

‘’If this is how unlucky you have been your whole life, no wonder you’re always in the sights of a one hunter or another. Seriously. How the fuck did you manage to stir up the room enough for an old wire to snap and cage you in? Were you like, cursed as a child? Are you a harbinger of ill omens?’’

 

‘’Hey,’’ Jace says sharply to his brother, ‘’I don’t think he’s alone in here, Jay. Look.’’

 

Both of them look at the room at large, their exercise flushed faces draining from blood alarmingly fast. ‘’What the fuck,’’ Jason breathes, taking a step back.

 

But before either of them can fully back out from the room, two small darts hit the exposed skin of their necks. The prick of the metal makes both men lift their hands up to yank the offending pieces out of their skin, but not before the damage is done. 

 

The effect is almost immediate. As Stiles starts his ascend from the iron deck leveled near the ceiling, both hunters drop to the ground like rag dolls, their eyes wide and terrified, but their limbs uncooperative.

 

‘’Kanima venom,’’ Stiles says cheerfully, jumping down the last two steps. ‘’Potent enough to force a huge mammal into immobility, let alone humans their size. They won’t be able to move a muscle for a couple of hours. Enough time for me to move them in a much better suited location.’’

 

Derek stares, open mouthed, at the two men lying on the dirty floor. Is it really going to be that easy?

 

A huge screech startles Derek, the cage getting lifted off of his body. Stiles offers him a warm smile.

 

‘’You good?’’

 

Derek nods. He breathes through his mouth. ‘’What are you going to do to them?’’

 

‘’Oh, you know,’’ Stiles says, ‘’Going to prepare them for the night of fun we’re gonna have, of course. Like those two over there.’’

 

Following the pointing thumb, Derek looks at the far wall. There, in two human-size plastic tubes are two people, who Derek assumes to be both male, both of them unconscious. They’re seemingly unharmed, if their positions in captivity are ignored. 

 

‘’You - Are those two - ‘’

 

‘’Yup,’’ Stiles says. ‘’There were four of them. These two decided to be smart asses and foul mouthed, so I let the girls go after a, hm, hard enough hits to the head to make sure they don’t remember ever being here? Anyway, those two idiots thought they could do whatever they wanted to them, so I decided to teach them a lesson. Not, mind you, that they’ll ever get to live again with that lesson, but at least they know why they’ll be experiencing the things I’ve thought to do to them. Uh. Was that eloquent enough? I don’t think I’m explaining myself well today.’’

 

Shrugging, Derek looks away from the two humans. ‘’You act a little too- You know them?’’

 

Grimacing, Stiles says, ‘’That obvious? Yeah, I know them. They were already creeps back in highschool, so I think I’m doing the society a favor by taking out two sexual predators off the streets.’’

 

The man claps his hands. ‘’Anyway! Come help me get these two idiots out of the open so you can go and lure in another bunch.’’

 

As he grabs the other, Derek tries not to look green as the added weight forces him to take deeper breaths. Usually the smells would fade after awhile, but he thinks that this room has seen so much violence and torture that even if it was scrubbed from the bottom to the top, nothing could ever properly wash away the stench death.

 

‘’Oh, hey, I almost forgot,’’ Stiles says after they’ve dragged the hunters into a small, empty room, and having shackled them in place. ‘’Put this around your neck. It’s a scent blocker. I could see you gagging over the smells, so it’ll probably make things easier for you.’’

 

Surprised but extremely grateful, Derek takes the small piece of wood with three runes carved on it, leather serving as a chain, putting it around his neck. All of the horrific smells immediately evaporate, leaving Derek only to smell his own basic scent. He almost drops to his knees by the sheer relief of it.

 

Stiles grins knowingly and claps on his back. ‘’Come on. We’ve got a couple more fish to catch.’’

  
  
  


\--

  
  
  


There are only two more hunters and Kate. The other two are easy, young and brash, ready to show off to their elders. They must be Kate’s new pet project, Derek thinks, as the darts dig deep into their necks and Derek drags them to another room, next to their already captured friends. They’re violent and full of rage, spitting profanities before the venom freezes their muscles so that all they can do is breathe.

 

That only leaves Kate. She’s smart though, like a vixen, and she has already realized that something’s amiss. She works alone because _ of course _ she does, it’s what she does best. She likes to cajole for her victims, pretending to be something she isn’t, creating an illusion of vulnerability that in reality, doesn’t exist with Kate.

 

All she has in her is her burning hatred for werewolves, and her desire to purify the world of them. It has made her cunning, a real theater stage actor as she pretends to care, to love, to nurture her partner, only to wake up in the middle of the night to light them on fire.

 

The Argents have always had that fascination for things that burn.

 

‘’Hello, sweetheart,’’ she greets Derek. She looks relaxed and much the same as she did when he was fifteen and young and so  _ goddamn naïve _ . He shudders at the hated pet name.

 

‘’I think you have something to do with my missing pals, hm? Don’t you, puppy?’’

 

Derek snarls, letting his half shift take over. She knows the exact buttons to push. To rile him up to make him lose control, let the rage fill him.

 

He won’t let it lose his focus though.

 

‘’Aw, don’t be like that. We’ve had a fun game so far, haven’t we? You managed to find all the treasures I left you too! Such a smart little puppy.’’ 

 

Even the briefest referring to Laura has his knees wobbling, chest filling with grief. Jesus. How  _ dare _ she? How can she act so brazen about the torture and murder of his sister? His Alpha? He has to look away for a moment to gather himself, staring unseeingly to the empty room next to him.

 

They’re up at the floor where Stiles found Derek less than a week ago. The stairs leading upstairs are wide and sturdy, and he knows Kate has multiple escape plans ready. When she had found out where he was residing, she no doubt pulled up some blueprints of the building, planned and outlined her options. And somehow she has picked to meet Derek up here.

 

She must have some sort of ace in her sleeve.

 

‘’Laura gave a good fight, you know? For an animal. Did it hurt when the Alpha power didn’t pass down to you, but to a feral omega who gave up her autonomy for me to use, just for the chance to feel that sort of power for once in her life?’’ 

 

Derek flinches minutely. Kate notices. She smiles, wide and delighted. Derek wonders how he never saw the cruelty behind that expression, the thirst for death in her eyes. How he ever found her beautiful.

 

‘’You know, I always had such fun time playing with you. You were just so  _ eager  _ to  _ please _ , like an affectionate little pet who didn’t get enough attention from his owner,’’ she muses, taking a step closer.

 

Derek’s legs feel cemented on the floor. Almost as if just the sound of Kate’s voice is strong enough to immobilize him in his entirety, fear flooding in his system stronger than adrenaline.

 

He can smell his own fear.

 

‘’Of course, trying to train you was a little boring. You never once put up a fight. You remember? You used to always shy away with your cheeks pink and plead,  _ ‘Please Kate, no, I’m not ready, I don’t know, no, Kate, please no,’ _ ‘’ she whines in an imitation of Derek’s voice, and laughs, cruel and mocking, ‘’and then you still came like a freight train just from the barest of touches. God, you were so fucking easy back then. But I managed to teach you so well how to please a woman, did I not? Taught you how to properly use that tongue to your advantage, how to use that power you hold to fuck a woman like you mean it. Have you? Used that cock to take care of people other than me? Did they scream their pleasure?’’

 

She looks at him, predatory glint in her eyes. ‘’Or perhaps you liked the whipping more? Or the knives?  _ ‘Please Kate, that hurts, I don’t like it, please, I’m scared, whaah _ ,’ ‘’ she snorts, unimpressed. ‘’All that whining and just a little bit of teasing of your prostate and your limp cock, you still orgasmed through the tears and blood, you little slut. Tying you down for me to play with was the best since you couldn’t squirm yourself free. Tell me Derek. Have you ever come as hard as you did when you were with me? Did anyone ever satisfy you the way I did?’’

 

Before he can utter a word, for his defence or to whine in distress, there’s a small  _ ‘thuck’  _ sound, and then her eyes are rolling to the back of her head and she falls limply to the ground, revealing Stiles from behind her, wielding a wooden baseball bat.

 

‘’That is one psycho bitch,’’ Stiles says blankly. 

 

Derek stares at her body lying on the floor, shocked numb. He sees Stiles nudging at her form with the tip of his bat before carelessly stepping over her to Derek.

 

‘’Are you okay?’’

 

Dazed, he nods. He’s okay. At least now that Stiles is here.

 

A warm hand gently grips at his wrist, pulling him closer, before he’s engulfed in an embrace that smells like pine needles and lavender and sweat and safety and  _ home  _ \--

 

‘’She’ll pay for her sins,’’ Stiles says against Derek’s neck. ‘’She’ll scream and beg and cry and I won’t show her mercy.’’

 

‘’Thank you,’’ Derek chokes, his own arms wrapping around Stiles’ solid frame. He inhales, taking in the man’s scent. It’s the first time Stiles is not wearing his scent blocker, and with Derek’s nose pressed against the man’s skin, his own necklace does nothing to block the man’s odour. He can smell the twirl of emotions on Stiles. Worry, affection, anger, disgust. Power, unlimited and endless, the aura of  _ Alpha predator  _ so thick it makes him want to bare his neck and offer himself to his leader.

 

The scent turns sweeter when he hugs Stiles closer, and Derek wants to kind of drown in it.

 

‘’Anytime, big guy. Anytime.’’ Stiles pats at his back, giving a tight squeeze before slowly releasing him. His eyes tint the barest of reds.

 

‘’Come on. We’ve got a party to plan.’’

 

Stiles brings his fingers to briefly pet the back of Derek’s neck, the line where his hair starts, and Derek has no doubt Stiles is perfectly aware of what it means for a werewolf.

 

As they descend back to the cellars in the same tiny lift, with the addition of Kate’s limp body thrown across their feet, Derek can help but glow with happiness at Stiles’ easy acceptance of the role of his Alpha.

  
  


\---

  
  


Two days later finds Derek sitting on the metal steps of what Stiles warmly calls his playroom. He’s slept well with Stiles plastered against his back, and they’ve gone out for burgers and milkshakes, went clothes shopping for Derek and got him a new ID and a new credit card, as well as had a walk under the full moon, digging two graves for Matt and Theo, the two guys Stiles had caught on the property. The men are both missing their privates, Stiles wanting to preserve them in glass jars. He has no idea why, but Derek doesn’t particularly care. His Alpha can do whatever he wants.

 

Kate has been raging in her tiny little jail room, stripped from her weapons, only in her white tank top and jeans. She’d been quiet and calculative first, but when Stiles made her urinate in the corner of her room instead of taking her to the bathroom, she’d become furious. 

 

Not that her fury had helped her. It just settled in her, impotent in the face of Stiles. 

 

But now. Now that Derek is less scared and more confident in Stiles and his abilities, he’s about to partake as a witness to the first session Stiles is going to have with Kate.

 

He had told him about it when they were laying on their bed, bodies entwined comfortably as Derek had bared his past to the man. Stiles hadn’t judged, hadn’t pitied him. Just offered comfort in a way that would appeal to Derek’s wolf, keeping his face close to Stiles’ neck while Stiles’ long fingers carded through Derek’s thick hair.

 

‘’I’ve decided that I won’t kill Kate right away,’’ Stiles had told him softly, a whisper of light in the darkness. ‘’She has made you suffer for a long time. I plan to prolong her misery just as long as you want me to, or I deem good enough. She won’t be able to hurt you anymore, not after I have fun with her for the first time, nor the last time, or any time between. I will keep you safe, and I will guard your heart with my life.’’

 

Derek sways his legs back and forth a little while Stiles prepares his ‘toys.’ There’s an examination table in the middle of the room, twenty feet from where the cage had fallen on top of Derek, with thick, metal straps that lock Kate’s limbs in place. Her mouth is stuffed with a ball gag that looks just as dirty and unsanitary as the rest of the implements.

 

She’s unconscious, still, but she won’t be for long.

 

‘’Hey Derek,’’ Stiles says, drawing Derek’s attention to him. ‘’There’s a switch up in the platform over there, on the panel next to the control center. It should blink kinda faded blue, and it should say ‘pool’. Can you go press that for me?’’

 

Derek hops onto his feet and climbs up, doing as he’s told. He finds it easily and when he pushes the button, the pipes nearby gurgle before water starts rushing through them.

 

‘’Thanks,’’ Stiles says as he starts to scale up the stairs to join him. ‘’Can you keep watch on the surveillance app every now and then when I have my, uh, funtime with Katie? I sometimes tend to lose myself into the play and I really don’t want uninvited guests venturing to the pool area right now.’’

 

Derek nods and takes the offered iphone. Stiles has bought him a new one too, to replace the one the hunters had burned, but he has nobody to call or text, so he mostly uses it when he’s out grocery shopping and still needs to have contact with Stiles.

 

Finding an Alpha has made him embarrassingly clingy, but Stiles had taken it on a stride, throwing out all sorts of medical terms for it, like  _ PTSD  _ and  _ coping with trauma _ and all sorts of words that don’t make much difference to Derek. And as touch-starved as Derek is, having issues with intimacy, finding out Stiles’ touch did nothing to provoke a negative reaction from him, has him over the moon to finally having someone to share contact and scents with.

 

Not that Stiles is exactly complaining either. He smells really happy whenever Derek initiates a hug or sidles closer than strictly necessary, or lets Stiles ruffle his hair. The man is also strangely fixated in seeing Derek eat, but it might be just his awakening Alpha powers, making him want to have a strong, healthy beta, and Derek’s current weight is far from ideal, so feeding him is making Stiles feel better.

 

‘’You ready?’’ Stiles asks, his arm sliding to wrap around Derek’s waist. ‘’She’s gonna be screaming for a long time.’’

 

Derek shrugs. ‘’I don’t think you can ever be ready for something like this,’’ he says softly. ‘’But I still want you to do it.’’

 

‘’Okie dokie,’’ Stiles agrees, pressing a kiss to Derek’s scruff before extracting himself. ‘’She’s gonna wake up soon and I wanna be there when she does. I think you should stay up on the stairs so she won’t see you necessarily, but you do what feels right to you.’’

 

Ears pinking, Derek says, ‘’Yeah, okay.’’

 

‘’You’ll watch the feed for me every now and then?’’ Stiles checks and Derek wiggles the phone in his hand as an lieu of an answer. ‘’Good,’’ Stiles says, satisfied, before hopping down the stairs.

 

Derek follows him halfway down before sitting, and braces himself for the shock of it all.

 

\--

  
  


For the next two hours, Derek has to focus on multiple intervals to the phone in his hand. Kate’s muffled screams ring in his ears as Stiles tries out the odd implements around. Most of them are rusty and in bad shape, probably full of bacteria that Derek’s werewolf healing probably wouldn’t even fight against. They look almost medieval, and as Stiles explains some of their functions to Kate, Derek learns that, yes, some of them are from decades ago.

 

The scrunches of bone or tears of flesh make him cringe and shrink away. He thinks he was a fool to want to witness something like this, this inhuman way of causing pain in another, but then Derek thinks back to all he has gone through, of all the scars and wounds and physical disabilities he would carry on his body if his healing hadn’t made vanish of every proof.

 

Hell, Derek would probably be dead.

 

He’s been drowned almost to the point of death, but not quite, he’s been burned and whipped and electrified and shot at, they’ve torn at his flesh and teeth and nails and bones, only for the sake of seeing how much his body could withstand, how much of it could his healing endure.

 

He thinks of all the people that were in his place before him, and the ones filling it after. How the hunters get away with it, year after year after year, because the mundane are clueless and the supernatural helpless. How this is very commonplace thing within the community, something they teach their kids to do, how to hate a living being so much that their burning passion is to cause pain and torture.

 

And suddenly he doesn’t feel all that bad after all.

 

On hour two, Stiles asks Kate if she’s thirsty. She’s been screaming behind her gag as much as she could without choking, tear tracks staining her cheeks. When she nods a yes, thinking she’ll be getting water, Stiles just calmly pulls down his zipper and pees in a cup, and then forces her to drink it.

 

Derek almost says something Kate had sometimes told him, that liquids were a privilege only good pups get, and the more Derek cries, the less likely he’ll be getting that cup of refreshments. Better to drink whatever offered, or go dehydrated. He keeps his mouth shut though, and looks at the twins trying to stay afloat while tied to one another, no shallow end to ease their workout, nor steps or ladders to help them heave themselves up. 

 

Stiles had told him to alert him when the twins would sink to the bottom, so that they’ll be on the brink of drowning, but wouldn’t, not yet. 

 

Another bout of agonized screaming draws Derek’s attention back to Stiles. He’s talking calmly, chiding Kate for being such a fussy doll. When he gets tired of her incessant trashing, he warns her once to be still before he drives a knife through her hand, asking her to, ‘ _ please be still, or I might slip like this again.’ _

 

When Kate finally passes out, Derek heaves a sigh of relief. He’s getting hungry despite feeling queasy and shaken, and he really wants to get out. The smell of flesh burning has very negative connotations in his mind, and the only thing keeping his brain from going to the painful memories is the physical visual of Kate suffering instead of his family.

 

‘’How’s Louie and Dewey doing?’’ Stiles asks, poking at Kate’s wound on her ribs to make sure she really is knocked out. She is.

 

‘’Still floating.’’

 

‘’Man, those two have some serious stamina. Well, we’ll see how they’re doing again after dinner. What do you want to eat? I’m hungry enough to eat just about anything.’’

 

Shrugging, Derek hops down the stairs he’s been occupying this whole time and grabs a cloth from a nearby table, offering it to Stiles to wipe his hands with. ‘’High protein?’’

 

‘’Mm,’’ Stiles says, accepting the cloth. ‘’Double bacon burger? With a side of curly fries?’’

 

‘’Works for me,’’ Derek agrees.

 

Stiles grins, wide and blinding. ‘’Great. Let me just clean these off and put Kate back to her room and we can go.’’

 

Wrinkling his nose, Derek shakes his head. ‘’I think you should shower first. You smell like. . .’’

 

‘’Like I just tortured someone within an inch of their lives?’’

 

‘’Yeah,’’ he nods. It makes Stiles snort.

 

‘’Okay, big guy. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go clean my nasty self up. Clog the drains with this gunk. Get eaten by the shower monster.’’

 

Derek doesn’t say how there are no such things as shower monsters, but a monster is not quite what he’s been led to believe, and he thinks he might be looking at one right now. Still, he hugs Stiles closer and protests at this imaginary fiend trying to take his Alpha away, making Stiles squirm with bashful happiness.

 

‘’You can take on the humans,’’ Derek says, eyes gazing over to Kate’s unconscious and bloody form, ‘’and I can take care of the monster department. Divide fifty-fifty.’’

 

‘’Deal,’’ Stiles says easily, pulling off the manacles on Kate’s limbs. They maneuver her limp body back to her empty room, though this time Stiles doesn’t offer her the courtesy of clothes. He also doesn’t patch up the sluggishly bleeding slices on her skin, nor the burn marks on the back of her everything. As Stiles is closing the door of her room, he stops to consider for awhile before saying,

 

‘’What do you think would happen if we bought the hottest chili the world has to offer, cut it up and forced pieces of it inside her vagina and anus?’’

 

Groaning, Derek hides his face behind his hands and protests weakly, ‘’This is so not a conversation I want to have before dinner.’’

 

‘’Oh, oops,’’ Stiles grins, unrepentant. ‘’Business and leisure, gotta keep them separate, gotcha. Hey, on the topic of leisure, want to go see the newest part of Star Wars in the theater? I heard it’s worth the gossip.’’

 

‘’Sure,’’ Derek says, taking Stiles’ hand as they exit both Kate’s room and the playroom entirely, ‘’But I refuse to have chocolate in my popcorn. That’s where I draw the line.’’

 

‘’Yeah, no, I don’t think chocolate belongs with popcorn either. Or, well, I haven’t actually ever tried so I can’t say for sure. I’ll have to look into that. . .’’

 

Derek thinks if he can have Stiles for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t mind the chocolate at all.

  
  
  
  


FIN.


End file.
